If life cycle oriented methods are to encourage sustainable development, they must account for the role of ecosystem goods and services, since these form the basis of planetary activities and human well-being. This article reviews methods that are relevant to accounting for the role of nature and that could be integrated into life cycle oriented approaches. These include methods developed by ecologists for quantifying ecosystem services, by ecological economists for monetary valuation, and life cycle methods such as conventional life cycle assessment, thermodynamic methods for resource accounting such as exergy and emergy analysis, variations of the ecological footprint approach, and human appropriation of net primary productivity. Each approach has its strengths: economic methods are able to quantify the value of cultural services; LCA considers emissions and assesses their impact; emergy accounts for supporting services in terms of cumulative exergy; and ecological footprint is intuitively appealing and considers biocapacity. However, no method is able to consider all the ecosystem services, often due to the desire to aggregate all resources in terms of a single unit. This review shows that comprehensive accounting for ecosystem services in LCA requires greater integration among existing methods, hierarchical schemes for interpreting results via multiple levels of aggregation, and greater understanding of the role of ecosystems in supporting human activities. These present many research opportunities that must be addressed to meet the challenges of sustainability.

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Two new chalcone–isoflavone dimers, caraganins A (1) and B (2), two new chalcone dimers, caraganins C (3) and D (4), and eight known compounds (5–12) were obtained from the red heartwood of the rhizomes of Caragana jubata. The structures of caraganins A–D were established by 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy, HRMS and ECD analysis, and comparison with previously known compounds. The anti-inflammatory activities of the new compounds were evaluated by measuring the production of NO, IL-6, and TNF-α in mouse RAW 264.7 macrophages induced by lipopolysaccharide. Among these, compounds 2 and 4 showed the most potent inhibitory activities (IC50: 4.1 and 5.2 μM, respectively) on nitric oxide formation, and compounds 1 and 4 displayed the most potent inhibitory activities on the secretion of inflammatory factor TNF-α, with IC50 values of 11.4 and 14.7 μM. The possible biosynthetic pathways of the chalcone–isoflavone dimers and the chalcone dimers are proposed.

A bridged version: Molecular junctions bridged by metal ion complexes were investigated by mechanically controllable break junction experiments on the level of individual molecules. The electrical conductance of the junctions varied strongly with the kind of bonded metal ion, in the order: Ca2+≫Zn2+>Ni2+ (see figure).